From the first episode, Penny Dreadful is captivating. Eva Green is riveting and bold, with the sci-fi content just right and the gore an acceptable level of over-the-top for something I expect from a sci-fi thriller-meets-Grimm-fairy-tales sort of spectacle. One of the best elements is that Penny Dreadful didn’t ease into the powerful, human, contradictions it would showcase over its too-short life. No, it went straight for the jugular, like the clean swipe of a ravenous werewolf.

Over the next few weeks, I’m going to explore some of the themes Ms. Ives and her co-collaborators cleverly broach in this show. Now, to be fair, it’s unfair to privilege Eva Green’s character, because in many ways this is an ensemble cast – but Ms. Ives, as Amunet (The Mummy…anyone? Anyone?), steals the show, so she enjoys a privileged emphasis in my accounting of this show’s value to popular culture. This piece is the first in a series and as such serves to orient us to the show and some of its highlights. In the articles that follow, I’ll delve more deeply into specific themes. But for now, let’s start with some fundamentals.

Don’t Be Fooled..This Isn’t The League of Extraordinary Gentleman

As followers of the series will know, the show combines storylines of some of our favorite didactic horror and fantasy novels. We meet Ms. Ives, the amazing Eva Green. She is a powerful female lead – even in a pseudo-period piece set in the mid-19th century. When we first see Vanessa, clad in full coverage black, with only the added mystery of lace and a Rosary she clutches in her hands, and the simple, yet haunting crucifix starkly centered on her bedroom wall, we aren’t quite sure if she’s cursed with stigmata, or if maybe she’s something else. And then spiders explode from behind the sacred symbols and we know things are about to get weird.

We then meet Mr. Chandler (Josh Hartnett), a brazen American making a mockery of the massacre of Native Americans at the hands of US cavalry. The writers bury the lede a bit, but eventually we learn that Ethan Chandler is an American Werewolf in London. Ms. Ives and Mr. Chandler then join with the stern and arrogant Sir Malcolm Murray (Timothy Dalton) and embark on a late night hunt to find Sir Malcolm’s daughter. Sir Malcolm Murray’s daughter is Mina, you know, the bride of Dracula. (As an aesthetic detail, I do love that the show opted for the more supernatural Nosferatu rendering of vampires than the shiny, happy human versions to which we’ve all been subjected in the past several years – I don’t think I need to name any examples.)

I feared I might be enduring The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. But while there are some overlaps in characters, Penny Dreadful is something altogether different – and spellbindingly so. Plus, the LoEG movie in no way uses the story of each of these characters in such a human way or to teach us about such human conditions. Penny Dreadful isn’t hokey or campy – and women are powerful and not just side pieces or afterthoughts, there are even episodes that pass the Bechdel-Wallace test. In so many ways this show is remarkable, and in the tradition of the great novels and fairy tales on which it is (loosely) based, Penny Dreadful is here to impart a lesson or two.

Everything That You Fear and All You Hold Dear

The various characters are ideally there to present someone or many someones with whom we can identify in some way. And almost all of them are characters who are driven to speak and live and exist in ways that are intimately informed by their fears – or their deepest desires. In many cases, these are two sides of the same coin. This is what I want my entertainment to do for me. Maybe it’s the permanent side effects of being an (mis)anthropologist, but hot damn if I don’t want art to imitate real, complicated, messy, conflicting, challenging life.

Take young Dr. Frankenstein. He is an introvert, not easily given to working with others or companionship. This, we learn, is his personality, although his distrust of others and the way he shuts people out has more to do with his secrets. And his secrets, not only his original experiment (John Claire), but the two others he creates, are the result of his obsession, and ultimately a fear of mortality, or if we dare say it, death. And he is certainly obsessed as evidenced by that first impassioned soliloquy he imparts when meeting with Sir Malcolm. His endeavor, “piercing the tissue between life and death,” is the only true discovery, the only noble pursuit. I wonder, though, if Viktor realizes that he has not resolved the problem of death, only that of reanimation.

Sir Malcolm certainly doesn’t fear death. No, his is a fear much more terrifying. He fears irrelevance, powerlessness – fears particularly acute for privileged white men, but also relevant to men embedded in patriarchal systems. In a more general sense, he fears failure, which he generally treats as unfathomable except for in the delicate matter of family and parenting in particular. When we see him falter in brief, but powerful moments, his fragility is painfully revealed. And failure is such a common human fear, is it not, especially in this era of late capitalism where we are often made to feel that our existence, our meaning as human beings, our importance and relevance, is tied to what we “do.” For Sir Malcolm, if he is not an explorer, what is he? What is he for?

Both Ms. Ives and Mr. Chandler (whose character, fears, and offerings I’ll address in a later post) fear themselves, respectively, and the consequences that might result in embracing who they are. As for Ms. Ives, she is a strong and strong-willed woman, although for all of her woman power, the writers have also found ways to keep her in a subordinate position to her almost all-male counterparts. Ms. Ives is a powerful witch and is marked and pursued by the Devil. It’s a little HellBoy meets Persephone (of Greek mythology), mashed up with The Mummy and Dracula, if I’m honest, but the point is that she is powerful. Even when she is possessed and all of the menfolk are compelled to watch over her and protect her, she retains her power, she fights back, and it is ultimately her own strength that saves her.

Her character is complicated, and contradictory in so many ways. The demonic possession in Season 1, comes about as a result of falling for Dorian Gray and having sex with him. Her desire, sexuality, and episodes of demonic possession are always linked in the show, initially, as a “psycho-sexual hysteria,” which is an issue I’ll take up in another post dedicated to sexuality in Penny Dreadful. And while this plot line chafes in the worst ways, I love the older priest’s conversation with her, when she eventually goes into the church and speaks to him. His response is both wonder and wisdom. He suggests to her, in a way that caught her by surprise, that if she truly is touched by the Devil, then in a way she is something Divine, and ponders why she would want to rid herself of such a privilege. The response is unexpected – and complicated, something I think that Penny Dreadful does well – it is a celebration of who she is and an affirmation that who we are is always a double-edged sword (or a 20-sided die). She fears herself and her power, but the most unlikely of sources reinforces that she is nothing less than divine.

What Lies Ahead

These characters only scratch the surface of the complexity of human existence and interaction explored in Penny Dreadful. In the articles that follow I’ll delve into the broader themes of gender, sexuality, desire, and mental health as they play out in the characters and plot lines of the show. I’ll take issue with the weaknesses of the show, while examining those didactic aspects that might help us think differently about what it means to be human.

Last week Queens of the Stone Age released a spooky interactive video for its latest single off …Like Clockwork, “The Vampyre of Time and Memory.” And it is important–but not for the reasons most rock critics and fans seem to think.

Despite a nearly month-long delay (the video was originally slated for a Halloween release, hence the band’s appearance on Conan on October 30), and despite interactivity that’s minimal at best, “Vampyre” is a rock video with women in it who don’t interact with men. With a Black woman who steals the show and has two white women in supporting roles. With Easter eggs featuring her.

First, the facts: The interactive video is set in a haunted ballroom. As the viewer walks in, you’re greeted by two creepy portraits–you know, the kind where the eyes don’t just seem to move–side by side. One is a buzz-cut Joshua Homme scowling, and the other is a slender Black woman with long dramatic earrings and hair over one eye. A white woman in a French maid outfit carrying a black cage of rats glares at you before heading down a hallway, and you follow her.

After a few clicks with a customized metal-sign hand (one of the band’s signature icons), you enter a ballroom and the song finally starts to play. Along with some underwhelming red herrings that open new windows leading to lyrics, merchandise, and collaborators’ websites, you can click between three side rooms with concurrently running lip-sync videos. In one the band plays surrounded by taxidermied animals, and in another they perform in slow-motion in an all-white room.

Then, in the third room-video, the Black woman from the portrait sits at a lace-draped piano, wearing an Elvira wig, lip-syncing for her life.

First of all, this woman is awesome. She chews the scenery, which is no small feat with the Venus fly traps, TV showing devilish Betty Boop, and the rest of the gothic mise en scene in her room. You can’t take your eyes off her. The camera lingers on her dramatic fake lashes and painted-on eyebrows as she mouths each word.

Second of all, she’s waited on by two anonymous white women who fade into the background. Our Elvira rises to dance with them, dramatically dropping into their arms at the line “To be vulnerable is needed most of all, if you intend to truly fall apart.”

Third, if you don’t catch the parallels between Queenie (as the TV seems to indicate is her name, and is echoed in the website credits–the actor is Dolly Boyd, by the way) and Homme, the director’s cut of the video lays it bare. Apart from the paintings, both of them draw two fingers down their face at the same moment in the song, both play the piano, and on their pianos rests a strange spiked book with the band’s name on the spine.

Now, here we go. I could find a gif of Homme doing this, but not one of her. In fact, despite a good romp through tumblr, I found no gifs of her at all. I understand that fans want to flail about the band–but was no other fan struck by Queenie?

The band obviously was. If you install the Chrome extension and visit the band’s Facebook page, you get to see a bonus version of the video with Dolly Boyd actually singing. It’s incredibly done, and her voice is deep and rich.

Perhaps I could learn more about Boyd or the Queenie character on the numerous music sites covering the video’s premiere, I said to myself. Naively. Instead, here are some collected comments about the women of the video, which either ignore Queenie and focus on the white maids or make one of two racist leaps: lumping her in with the maids or assuming she’s a voodoo priestess. Seriously:

See, how hard was that? Pretty hard, I guess. Not that I’m shocked that minimal inclusion of women of color is ignored or misread by rock critics, just here to give Dolly Boyd props, as I hope the band and their collaborators at The Creators Project do in any future interviews. As innovative and fun as the technology and surprises in the video are, there’s no call for ignoring Boyd’s contribution.

Like this:

I love the Steven Moffat era of Doctor Who. LOVE it. I love that he tries to push the envelope with his plots and characters. But something I can’t quite wrap my head around is Moffat’s obsession with the mom trope. For all the progressive themes Moffat throws at UK and US audiences alike, he still finds a way to emphasize, and indeed define women in the role of mother, or psuedo-mother, or caretaker of children. Even the so-called “baddies” are often defined by motherhood. I, mean, what the hell man?! Even our latest companion, Clara, starts out as a super savvy and sassy barkeep, and independent woman, strong, witty, only to turn into friggin’ Mary Poppins – buttress and everything. And in the latest episode she’s toting the kids she currently nannies for around in the Tardis, making this weird nuclear family visual. In fact there’s this heteronormative, nuclear family theme throughout all of the episodes I can possibly think of in the New Doctor Who – and possibly many of the original episodes, too.

Why Steven, WHY-Y-Y-Y?!! For the love of all that is good and socially just in the world, this idea is contrary to modern family structures, and certainly to the view that women, mothers or not, have of themselves. As a publicly gay male, why not dispel these myths and while you’re at it stop locking up women in dated, stereotypically patriarchal roles. (ed. Ooops, there was a mixup with initial showrunner Russell T. Davies here.) I’ll save “queering” Doctor Who for another time, but if we’re talking about the roles of women, it’s only fair to liberate every person, female-bodied or otherwise from the heteronormative stranglehold of the woman as caretaker, baby-maker, and doting admirer, “Sweety.” Look, I don’t have anything against mothers, or motherhood,or mommy-as-superhero. What troubles me is that “mommy” is often used in a way that weakens the power of a female character, or that overwrites any other forms of power and agency that a female character can have. Sometimes, it underscores the supposed deficiencies of a woman, or is itself the downfall of a woman in the “Doctor Who” universe. I’m not the only Whovian to have this beef with Moffat either. Nivair H. Gabriel over at i09 offers her perspective on the subject. (And, honestly, a quick Google search of “Steven Moffat sexist” will automatically bring up dozens of articles about his latent misogyny.) So though, it’s been said before, I feel compelled to add my voice to the chorus, pleading, compelling Moffat and all the writers for the Doctor Whoverse to make some real changes.

Let’s consider the evidence, shall we?

“Are you my mummy?” Remember this creepy episode? It. was. AWESOME. The Ninth Doctor (the fabulous Christopher Eccleston) encounters this kid-shaped being with a WWII-era gas mask fused to his face by nanites that couldn’t distinguish between the actual human face and the mask. This kid thing is chasing around this young woman, Nancy, who is also somehow made permanently young by the same nanites, creepily asking “are you my mummy?” I know how it ends, but it gives me the shivers, every – freaking- time. The young woman it turns out, is the kid’s mom. Some fluke of the alien technology that made the child a walking gasmask zombie stalled her aging process, making her look more like zombie-boy’s sister. Then, there’s some healing, motherly embrace and all is righted. Really Moffat? Really?! What do you take me for?! Why couldn’t she remain his sister? Or an extraterrestrial species? Why did she have to be mum?

And my least favorite rendition of this overused gimmick is in the Amy Pond episodes. Amy is made into the broodmare for the Silence who steal River Song/Melody Pond and make her into the Doctor Who lover/wife/killing machine. And then later we learn in the last half of the Ponds’ final season that “whatever they did” to her rendered her incapable of having other children. This is the source of the tension brewing between the rocky Rory-Amy relationship at the beginnging of their final season, because, we learn, he wants kids and she can’t have them. I wrinkled my nose and was (still am if you can’t tell) ALL PISSED OFF at Moffat for this. WTF?! Not to mention throughout this whole saga, the Tardis is scanning Amy’s uterus and making her body known to all but her. Dude, Moffatt, not cool. Why is her body, or my body, your business! Why she gotta be pregnant? Make Rory pregnant! Make the Doctor pregnant! Why must you confine us women to this biological oddity, and then summarily define us by it?!

It’s like Moffat isn’t quite sure what to do with us ladies other than make us baby fiends. Sure, babies are adorable if they’re Stormageddon (honestly, best baby name in the history of the universe), but not every woman is Jonesin’ to play the role of Mum. And we aren’t defined by motherhood. Women can be and are so much more than caretaker. We’re damn good at caretaker, but we are usually a million other things at the same time. We’re just good like that – or, it could be that we’re tacitly expected to do everything under the sun, so we’ve adapted the skills necessary to multitask and be all things to all people. And strangely, we’re only credited for our reproductive capacities. It just seems to shortchange us ladies when Moffat stuffs us into mommy role, constantly reminding us of what society-at-large expects us to do with our bodies, rather than exploding that paradigm, and exploring the myriad other facets that make us fearsome in the universe.

The vision of mommyhood as the end-point of a woman’s adventures, strengths, follies, or genius, is equally damaging to the real women who occupy the real universe, not just the characters in the Whoverse. Upon getting pregnant or having children, women don’t become docile, or powerless. Have you ever met a mommy? They are fierce! I get that the mommy trope can be useful for storytelling, but don’t do it so often that it starts diminishing the female characters in Doctor Who or diminishing the incredible power these women should be portrayed as having. It’s so one-sided, so limiting, so, dare I say it, unimaginative.

With the recent rumor of John Hurt (another old, white dude – a great actor, to be sure, but seriously!) as the new Doctor succeeding Matt Smith (who is abandoning ship *supersadface*), I worry that it may be a while before I get my wish to see a less patriarchal, more radical exploration of gender roles in the Whoverse. The dynamic between Clara and Doctor Who XII is going to be much different than between her and XI. I mean is she really going to call John Hurt a “clever boy” or a “silly boy.” I’m dubious. I expect we’ll see more of the classic Doctor Who patriarchy, if Moffat keeps with his current M.O.

My plea to Moffatt, should he return for another season, is this: lay off the mommy trope for a while – or, no – AND hire a female writer who has experience being an amazing sci-fi writer on top of being a mommy. (Seriously, though, do this. it can only help right the listing patriarchal ship that is currently Doctor Who and improve the gender dynamics in the industry. See!? Real life consequences to the stuff you generate in the Doctor Who universe!)

Like this:

As we approach Game of Thrones’ season 3 finale, now is a good time to stop and appreciate the great songs we’ve heard on the show this season. Ripped from the pages of George R. R. Martin’s thick volumes and adapted by indie rock favorites, we’ve been treated to The Hold Steady’s rollicking “The Bear and the Maiden Fair” and—much to our recent chagrin—The National’s haunting a capella “Rains of Castamere.”

But what other songs could fit into GRRM’s universe? Don’t worry, we are on it like Tywin Lannister on a stray gold dragon. Here are the songs we’d play for our favorite characters, if we could call up Casey Kasem and send some FM shout-outs over Radio Westeros. (Essos is still on AM.)